I listened to the Emergency Directors for the counties of both Pinellas and Hillsborough located in Florida. As an observer of Hurricane Ian, I am relieved that I can comfortably sit back but frustratingly do very little in direct assistance. I remember living in Pittsburgh with below twenty-degree weather, Houston and my first hurricane and floods, Columbus with a few tornados, LA, with wildfires, and recently on the Cape with both a nor’easter and blizzard and I still can feel my pulse begin to race as those horrific weather disasters were headed my way. Natural Disasters are elongated nightmares, that haunt you while asleep and torture you while awake. Even sadder, it seems that those, every hundred years or once in a 1000-year disaster are more like every other month's occurrences.
But as I listened to these public emergency officials, I also heard a very snide commentary regarding evacuation, and mainly, as I see it a real lack of priority for the poor. Both County officials urged people to get out of town. They BOTH said, and I paraphrase, go to family or friends at least 20 miles from your zone. If you do not have family or friends go to a hotel out of the hurricane's path. They then added, yet, we have Shelters, but they are not as comfy or spacious as a hotel room, and all you will get there is room for a cot and sharing space with many others. And the final touch was, you should seek shelter elsewhere.
I was blessed to either have my family, friends, and even the financial wherewithal to have faced those Natural Disasters, so if I needed to escape I could, and when I needed to rebuild I could. But IN AMERICA, we have people who can’t even manage pay-check to pay-check. We have folks alone, elderly without family. We have neighbors who no longer think that it “takes a village.” We have people who do not own a car, who rely on mass transit, and who fear opening their doors.
I appreciate the efforts made by local Crisis Management Personnel, but damn, WHY, does it seem in matters of survival, having the MEANS can almost make it less of a disaster!
